


The Obsessed Legend

by rekishi



Series: Offspring Series [1]
Category: Coldfire - Friedman
Genre: Multi, Next Generation, Post-Canon, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-08
Updated: 2010-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-05 23:51:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rekishi/pseuds/rekishi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long after the rules on Erna changed, a new generation is struggling with religion and politics. However, that does not mean the old generation will just crawl off to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Obsessed Legend

**Author's Note:**

> This story has a companion piece called "The Fire's Night".

I never quite found out what the relationship between my father and Uncle Damien was. I'm saying Uncle Damien, even though there is no blood relation between us but he treated me like we were thus connected somehow. Which is only adding to my confusion, to be truthful.

My father was a very strict man, who raised me with a strong hand, albeit never overtaxing me in mind or body. I don't have any memories of him before I am maybe four years old; my mother raised me alone until that point. We were comparably well off, not rich, but we were certainly not merely scraping by. I suspect that my father was providing for us, since I hardly believe that my mother's pottery was good enough to keep up the standard we were living in.

As I pointed out, my father was not a part of my life before my fourth birthday, which was when a stranger showed up in our house meaning to pick me up. My mother explained it to me, that he was my father and he had come to collect me, to start my education and raise me as his heir. Of course, this didn't change the fact that I screamed and shouted and cried and didn't want to be taken away from all I knew by a man I had never seen before. I recall today that my father looked very indignant and embarrassed at my behavior and probably would have liked to scold my mother but eventually he sighed, bent down and started to talk with me. He spent all day with me and at the end of it I was ready to at least visit.

My first meeting with Uncle Damien is a blur and I don't remember much of the next few days.

As for what transpired between father and Uncle Damien, it remains a mystery to me to this day. They had been living in the same house for a long time, as far as I can figure at least, but they didn't share a bedroom. Either of them would spend the occasional night away, becoming rarer as I grew older, but none of them would bring anyone home. Likewise, they would occasionally spend a night together in one of their rooms, but I can't say with certainty what happened or what didn't.

They never struck me as lovers but they were so much more than just friends. If their bickering was to be any indication I would say they had been married for a century by the time I moved in. Oddly enough, I would not have minded them being lovers; not only would it have explained a lot but in a way, they seemed to complete one another. The ladies in the neighborhood used to gossip about them being like a matched set one way or another.

I can't quite say what Uncle Damien's work entailed either, as he seemed to do a lot of things very sporadically, but not often for other people. He would take on the occasional job as a bodyguard but never longer than a week running, but that was pretty much it. He took care of matters that came up, certainly did the same security work for my father and me as well, had heated theological and political discussions with my father, but I can't pin down a job description on him.

Too many questions. I have no answers, not even for myself, and going through their things now after they just vanished a few years ago is producing only more questions than answers as well.

My education was rigorous. I know all the details about the Church of Human Unification since its establishment, there is a whole room of scrolls in my hand about the topic, all its important personae, its important writings, the essence of the Faith. In its pure version, not the one tempered over time to scurry for political favors. I also know everything about the Line of Merentha, a curious topic that didn't make much sense to me when my father first brought it up when I was barely eleven years old. But ask me who married whom and who died or was killed when and I will answer in a heartbeat.

I also know about the cullings.

I was sixteen before my father told me about my standing and my claim to the seat at Merentha.

At times I had the suspicion he got my mother, herself a descendant of an ancient but impoverished noble line as I know today, pregnant to have someone else of the blood who would be able to wrest the title of Neocount from Andrys Tarrant. I'm not convinced of that any longer. Partly because I have seen a rendition of the last surviving portrait showing my father's late wife, found among the things Uncle Damien left behind, and my mother could be her carbon copy when she was younger. Partly because I have now met Andrys Tarrant several times. I'm tempted to lay claim to that title and its lands simply for the reason of my purer blood.

To say my family is somewhat peculiar is definitely an understatement. I'm not sure how many people have come to the same conclusion, although I have reason to hope that not many on the outside are aware of this. Those two might have left before anyone could take notice of neither of them aging a day. I seem to recall there being heated discussions about it that ended in drawn daggers more than once when I was younger but those simply...settled at some point. But it might have needed some explaining to others that no one could reasonably do, with the fae un-Workable; but there has never been a rule my father hasn't bent to the breaking point, so why should the fae present any exception?

I am in no way aware of the details of that, not being an Adept. Maybe our youngest child will be able to explain at some point, since everything points at her possessing the same perception as my father. We named her Almea and should the man ever return, he will be spitting mad.

I should have anticipated their sudden disappearance. When you rise to a certain position in this society, your life can only take so much scrutiny.

~*~

Damien was dozing in the saddle until his horse stumbled and caught itself before going down; he was thrown forward onto its neck. The animal snorted and shook its heavy head, jiggling its tack while Damien swore under his breath and tried to sit up straight again.

"Language, Vryce," came the dry comment from his companion. "I can't believe I let you near my child with that mouth of yours. It's a miracle I didn't raise a cussing dock worker."

"That 'child', Gerald, is twenty-seven years old by now, and has managed the art of skillful and subtle insult to a degree you should be proud of." Opening a canteen and taking a sip of the brackish water they had filled into the canisters was not pleasant but it took care of thirst at least. Gerald turned his gaze back onto the path they were traveling, barely more than a game trail.

"And has a second offspring now, yes."

"You would Know, wouldn't you?"

"I would indeed," a stray strand of hair blew into his face and Gerald brushed it back impatiently. The longer hair was one of the few acknowledgments the former Neocount would make to the passage of time.

Damien sighed. "I thought you were only supposed to use the fae when necessary as to not establish a new pattern."

"I am. The state of my family does not count as a necessity?" Damien threw him an exasperated look. "Speak your mind, Vryce, if you have to say anything at all."

"It just doesn't seem fair that, just for you of all people, there should be an exception. We've discussed this. Be it death, or the Mother of the Iezu or even God, everyone seems to make an exception for Gerald Tarrant. No one can manipulate the fae but you-"

"And you, by extension." The bastard looked smug.

"Tell me, when have I last Worked anything?"

"Two weeks ago, when that thorn would have made your leg rot off. We both know it was necessary, but you're still applying double standards here. While I'm not averse to those, they're not in your nature." The smugness had quickly turned into impatience and borderline contempt so Damien let it rest and grumbled.

"What was that?"

"I said that if I didn't know better I would almost think you utilized the fae to get that poor woman pregnant all those years back."

A beatific smile was turned towards him that almost made Damien swallow hard around a lump in his throat because such an expression was never a good sign on this man. "And how do you know I did not do so?"

It might be better to keep his own counsel now. Gerald had, compared to his time as the Hunter, turned mellow and almost pleasant to be around for others. He had been an excellent father, something Damien had only known from ancient histories and the little interaction he had seen between his friend and Jenseny. But Damien also knew what kind of man Gerald Tarrant was when the circumstances demanded it. Or even if they didn't demand it and he just had a bad day.

And in all honesty, Damien should probably not begrudge the man his use of the forces of Erna. Death had not claimed him in those days before and after Calesta's destruction and Damien had been thankful for that. The Mother of the Iezu had offered enough of a mystery and a challenge that Gerald had seen it as a task. And God... Well, God had probably presented his own challenge, when he had answered Damien's plea back in the Black Lands and shattered Gerald's control.

No, Damien understood why his companion had employed the fae, him as the only one still able to without endangering his life, and why and how that had come to pass was a mystery to both of them, to lengthen his life. At the beginning though, Damien had railed at the injustice of being bound to Gerald so tightly that it cheated his own biology. It was an undesired side-effect of the channel forged between them, that had survived death and only grown stronger. It had taken a few years, but Damien had made his peace with it eventually. His new goal mostly consisted of preventing Gerald from committing some stupidity. Like tampering with human genes the old fashioned way, like he had tempered with the horses'.

Sometimes, of course, their limited use of the fae was proving problematic; when they had traveled the rakhlands before, Gerald could transform into any shape he desired, take wings and stake out the terrain. That route was closed to them now, and while Damien didn't mind what it signified, Gerald's humanity, as he didn't mind the travel stains his companion kept looking at with disdain, the loss of that unhuman skill and strength both were something they were missing. There had been several scraps and almost-mishaps that would have been quicker taken care of, or avoided completely, with unlimited use of Erna's natural forces. Not every tribe had the khrast-system implemented, it seemed, or reacted friendly to the invasion of their territory by humans.

"I still don't think she remains with the tribes," Damien ventured after a while. An argument they'd had a thousand times in the last few years was safe enough turf.

There was still no fooling his companion though. "Indulge me Vryce, and tell me again why not. She's an expert where the rakh are concerned, she will hardly have charted all there is she wanted to know about them. And we agreed her knowledge would be most valuable for our project." Finding out more about the Iezu for the Iezu themselves, who could still not communicate with their mother.

However, there was one argument he had never brought up when they had started on this journey. "Her wards will have failed by now, Gerald. She will be aging and might have wanted to be among her own kind. We should be searching where she had previous associations, Faraday, Jaggonath."

But Gerald shook his head. "Her wards won't have failed." Their eyes met and Damien could see that Gerald knew, that he knew how afraid Damien was of finding a woman aged and bent, who he had known so full of life, when he himself had only grown so much older. "Wards of the quality she established will hold for several decades, and are still renewed every year out of habit."

He was silent for a long moment. "She is among her own kind. Ciani sa-Faraday," he used the rakh name. "From all we know, the rakh are a people who will care about their young and their old. Hunting is not the only task of the females, not the only reason how the ability of using the tidal fae could evolve in the first place."

Gerald's face was turned away as he said this but Damien could see the sudden tension in his stature. One more reason why they were looking for Ciani; who else might have been able to acquire the ability of utilising the tidal fae when the earth fae stopped responding to attempts at Working? Who else but the woman who had chosen the rakh over her own species?

The sun was slowly starting to set, they would need to make camp soon, find water for the horses and themselves.

~*~

Their names, where the destruction of the demon Calesta and the Hunter's Keep is concerned, have been purged from history. They are referred to as two brave men who acted in accordance to their Faith and who died for their efforts. It was the second time this happened to my father.

I can only imagine the rage he was in when the first reports and histories were published, for I was not yet alive. It must have been substantial though, for there is a wall on the estate that shows dents in the masonry and no one goes close to it.

It is strange, to be the child of this man, to carry the story of a legacy that never happened as far as the world is concerned. If my father was any one else, if I wasn't able to see the deep connection between him and Uncle Damien - that must have come from somewhere and looking at who my father once was I can't imagine it being instant mutual affection - and if these two men weren't too honorable people to tell outright lies... I would not believe it.

I share this burden, this truth, with the Iezu Karril, who has been a regular fixture in our lives for as long as I can remember. I can safely consort with this self-styled god of ecstasy, despite my position in the Church of Human Unification, due to the change that has been wrought since the time Uncle Damien has served as one of its priests. For internal Church politic knows their names and their deeds - albeit not all about their continued existence - knows about the catastrophe that was prevented only by the man who once was the Prophet and his companion who ignored the Patriarchs directives. We're not closed in upon ourselves any longer but have formed alliances with the other religions.

Nowhere in the laws my father has laid down a thousand years ago is there a prohibition against this.

I don't know if those two men, who are but will never be the stuff of legend, will return here one day and if I will still be alive then. There is still power in blood, though. The Church may not believe in previously established patterns in the fae or in sorcery, but the name Tarrant still awakens an echo of terror along with respect. In this world, the past written in words only has so much impact.

-Fin-

 


End file.
